Local Search Rankings Factors – 2011 Edition

On Friday, David Mihm published his highly regarded, famous, and incredibleLocal Search Rankings Factorsreport. Over the last few years, David has been surveying a plethora of local search marketing experts, to get their feelings on the current state of local search marketing and how it effects small business. Yours truly has been honored to participate in this important survey each year. What did I say? You will need to read the report. 🙂

The goal of the report, in David’s words: “It is my hope that this study will help small business owners confused by Local Search, or those strapped for time, to prioritize their marketing efforts.”

I am not going to repeat the whole report but outline a few of the key elements or why you should spend some time with it.

1. The folks David got to do the survey is basically a “who’s who in local search”.

2. He provides a super list of background articles for folks to read to help provide some more information

This survey is a great place to get a feel for the basics or what at least to focus on. There are a ton of factors that influence your local search rankings and there is usually not just 1 or 2 factors you need to focus on. It is the “body of work”.

My recommendation is to review this report but then to speak to a marketing expert who knows your geographic area. Why? From my experience I have seen that some factors can be more important than others (or vise versa) depending on where you located. The bottom line is, local search marketing is critical for you online visibility.